Lost Schools: Their school is closing; now what?

The Corwith city council met Nov. 18, 2014, with residents and members of the Corwith-Wesley-LuVerne school board to discuss the future of the high school building following the district dissolution at the end of the year.
Charlie Litchfield/The Register

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School board members and civic leaders gather to discuss the future of the Corwith-Wesley-Lu Verne high school building at a special meeting Tuesday of the Corwith City Council following the dissolution of the district at the conclusion of the 2014-2015 school year.(Photo11: Charlie Litchfield/The Register)Buy Photo

Like footage from a horror film, they've watched the agonizing phenomena unfold in their own surrounding communities. School reorganizations or district dissolution in the last three decades have left buildings vacant in such places as nearby Klemme and Wesley communities.

Now their own community faces the same hurt, a direct result of larger farms and smaller families that have squeezed rural American schools.

The Corwith-Wesley district will be history as of June 30, 2015.

"The reality is the city is shrinking and we've got to find a way to slow the shrinking," Mayor Dave Wagner, an advocate of reusing the school, said before a group of about 40 residents who gathered last week.

The nearly 90-minute meeting was dedicated to public discussion about what to do with the nearly 100-year-old school building — the hub of this town's social activities — once the last bell rings.

The ideas ranged from turning all or parts of the three-story structure and its outbuildings into a fire department and community center or selling it to a private developer. Some advocated completely leveling the structure.

All the people who spoke at last week's public meeting agreed on one thing: Years and even decades of vacancy is the most undesirable option.

"Being from Wesley, I drive by the Wesley building every day and every day I kick myself that we didn't demolish that building when we had a chance to demolish that building," said school board member Tracy Studer.

Studer continued: "I realize I'm one person, one vote on the board, but I'd have to be 100 percent convinced that if we sold this building, that it would be put to good use and would be taken care of. I don't want this community to have an eyesore like we have in Wesley from not doing what we should have when we had the chance."

Wesley's school building was shuttered in 2009, a result of district sharing agreements with Corwith and Lu Verne. The city now owns the structure, which Studer noted has been stripped of its utilities. It is used for some storage, but little else.

Wesley is anything but unique. More than 13,000 school buildings – many one room and considered to be their own districts – dotted Iowa's landscapes in 1894. Today there are 338 districts and more are expected to close in upcoming years due to a variety of population and financial stresses.

And Iowa isn't alone in school closures, either. In the early 1930s, about 120,000 public school districts existed across the nation. Today, fewer than 20,000 are operating, according to information from the Colorado-based National Education Policy Center.

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School board members and civic leaders gather to discuss the future of the Corwith-Wesley-LuVerne high school building at a special meeting of the Corwith City Council on Tuesday, Nov. 18, 2014, in Corwith, Iowa. following the dissolution of the district at the conclusion of the 2014-2015 school year, seen here , Charlie Litchfield/The Register

School board members and civic leaders gather to discuss the future of the Corwith-Wesley-LuVerne high school building at a special meeting of the Corwith City Council on Tuesday, Nov. 18, 2014, in Corwith, Iowa. following the dissolution of the district at the conclusion of the 2014-2015 school year, seen here , Charlie Litchfield/The Register

A group of community members sit and listen to school board members and civic leaders during a Corwith City Council meeting where the future of the Corwith-Wesley-LuVerne high school building was discussed on Tuesday, Nov. 18, 2014, in Corwith, Iowa. following the dissolution of the district at the conclusion of the 2014-2015 school year, seen here , Charlie Litchfield/The Register

A group of community members share a laugh while gathering with school board members and civic leaders during a Corwith City Council meeting where the future of the Corwith-Wesley-LuVerne high school building was discussed on Tuesday, Nov. 18, 2014, in Corwith, Iowa. following the dissolution of the district at the conclusion of the 2014-2015 school year, seen here , Charlie Litchfield/The Register

Corwith mayor Dave Wagner looks to a group of community members for further questions during a city council meeting where the future of the Corwith-Wesley-Lu Verne high school building following the dissolution of the district at the conclusion of the 2014-2015 school year, seen here on Tuesday, Nov. 18, 2014, in Corwith, Iowa. , Charlie Litchfield/The Register

An electronic reader board outside the Corwith City Hall advertises a special meeting of the Corwith City Council where the future of the Corwith-Wesley-Lu Verne high school building following the dissolution of the district at the conclusion of the 2014-2015 school year, seen here on Tuesday, Nov. 18, 2014, in Corwith, Iowa. , Charlie Litchfield/The Register

Michele Garman, a Corwith resident, pauses while talking about her outlook on the future of the Corwith-Wesley-LuVerne high school building, following a special meeting of the Corwith City Council on Tuesday, Nov. 18, 2014, in Corwith, Iowa. , Charlie Litchfield/The Register

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Public meetings — like the one in Corwith last week — are critical because they help facilitate a smoother transition for schools and communities, according to one of the conclusions from a dissertation paper written in 2009 by Christopher Anderson, a doctoral student at Drake University's School of Education.

Michele Garman, a 1989 Corwith graduate, said at last week's meeting that she supports an idea to spend $20,000 to $30,000 to hire an engineer to assess the building for possible reuse plans. Garman, whose two sons will attend Algona High next year, later became misty-eyed as she discussed the school's possible fate.

"It's just the whole thing," Garman said in explaining her reaction. "It was my school and my kids go to school there."

Many of the people at the meeting addressed each other by first name. There were no interruptions. No instances of rude behavior. But about a dozen, like Garman, did express their hopes, thoughts or fears.

"The easiest thing to do is just walk away from it," Wagner, the mayor, told the group. "That's the easiest thing anybody could do, but I also think that would be the biggest travesty this community could ever take."

Wagner continued: "There's other communities that have done what we're thinking of doing and have made it work. I've got a feeling in my heart that if we get the right mix of people committed to looking at the things that we need to look, it will work."

No decisions were made last week. City leaders said more meetings will be planned.

ABOUT THIS SERIES

The Des Moines Register is spending a year documenting the changes in the Prairie Valley school district in northwestern Iowa and the nearby Southeast Webster Grand district, which now have a grade-sharing agreement. The publication also is documenting the dissolution of the Corwith-Wesley district in far northern Iowa, a school with fewer than 110 students that is expected to permanently close at the end of this school year.

Stories will be told in print, online and in a video documentary to be published by the Register and broadcast statewide on Iowa Public Television in August or September 2015.

Jason Clayworth is a graduate of Moulton-Udell High School, which is in a southern Iowa school district that has seen declining enrollment in recent years. He graduated from Drake University. He is an investigative journalist for the Register, where he has been on staff for 16 years. He can be reached at 515-699-7058, jclayworth@dmreg.com or on Twitter @JasonClayworth.

Charlie Litchfield is a graduate of Ames High School and Iowa State University. He has worked in journalism for nearly a decade, the past two years as a staff photographer at the Register. His work from around the state can be seen on his Twitter and Instagram feeds @CharlieLitch.